


on the edge of summer

by betony



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Backstory, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Headcanon, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 21:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a little yellow-haired girl at the party tonight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the edge of summer

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Vienna Teng's "Daughter." Spoilers if you're not familiar with Riza Hawkeye's backstory and ancestry.

There’s a little yellow-haired girl at the party tonight. 

Victoria, who spent years being the bored little yellow-haired girl at her father’s parties, can’t help but feel sorry for her; and so, the first chance she gets, she makes her way to the staircase where the girl is sitting. 

“Hello,” she says, making sure to give the girl her kindest smile as she holds out her hand. “My name’s Victoria.” 

The girl doesn’t take it. Instead she lifts her nose higher in the air and says, icily, “I _know_ who you are. It’s _your_ party.” 

Well. There’s a surprise. Victoria holds her smile in place by sheer force of will as she moves her hand back to her side. “So it is. Are you enjoying yourself?” 

“No,” is the immediate answer. That’s a trap Victoria guesses she walked straight into. It’s funny; one would think that the Central Military Academy would have beaten that sort of thoughtlessness out of her by now. Still, one thing the Academy did manage to teach her is the value of perseverance, so Victoria tries once again: 

“I like your hair. It’s very pretty.” And it is nice, much nicer than Victoria’s pale limp hanks of hair had looked when it had been as long as the girl wears hers. Never was Victoria more pleased than the day she entered the Academy, if only so she could cut it all off and never have to bother with it again. This little girl’s hair, though, is the bright gold Victoria had always wanted her hair to be, and when it catches the light, Victoria might almost swear it sparkles. 

“Yours isn’t.” 

Victoria can’t help it. She laughs at that, full and deep, ignoring the girl’s affronted scowl. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she says, when she can talk, “it’s just, well, you’re a very unusual little girl.” 

The girl gives her the haughtiest look Victoria’s seen on a human being. “I’m not just a little girl. Someday, when I grow up, I’m going to be a General, like your dad, and blast all the Cretans and Aerogans and Drachmans out of Amestris!” 

An image forms itself in Victoria’s mind: this tiny child, kitted up in an oversized military uniform and tromping around in industrial boots, imperiously staring down all her subordinates as she fires a toy cannon alongside the top brass. The thought makes her smile. “All right.” 

“That’s all?” The little girl is squinting up at her, all suspicion. “Aren’t you going to tell me I’m being stupid? That it’s more important that I should be a good girl instead?” 

“I doubt,” Victoria says, mock-solemnly, “that anything I do or say could keep you from something you set your mind to.” 

“Humph.” The girl tosses her hair over her shoulder and looks away. “Of course not.” 

Victoria is just amused enough by her new young friend and her wild ideas to keep needling at her for the rest of the evening, but of course that’s not a possibility. Dad makes eye contact with her from across the room, and she knows it’s time to join him for his announcement. She knows he hates to be kept waiting, so she leaves the little girl behind on the stairs and weaves her way around guests to stand at her father’s shoulder. 

“There you are, Vicky,” he says, out of the corner of his mouth. “Enjoying yourself, my dear?” 

“Tremendously,” she assures him, and stands on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. “Thanks, Dad. It’s a wonderful party.” 

Dad chuckles. “Aren’t they all?” With that he raises his voice. “Ladies and gentleman, esteemed comrades—and competitors!” He caps this off with a wink, and people obligingly laugh. “I’d like to thank you all for attending this party to celebrate my daughter’s graduation from the Academy!” There’s a ripple of applause at that, but before it can go on for too long, Dad raises his voice again. “And what’s more, I’d like to take this opportunity to announce my intention of applying for a position on Central Command’s Local Governing Board!” 

That does it; for the rest of the night, Dad is surrounded by people wanting to talk this new development over with him, people wanting to discuss what he can do once he’s gotten the job, people ready to negotiate what Dad can do to assure their support. It’s exactly what Dad wanted –hardly a surprise. 

So really, Victoria isn’t even sure why she’s disappointed. 

* * *

“Equivalent exchange,” Berthold tells her, eyes shining; “it means everything in the world could be ours, if we’d only pay the price. All there is to seek out, to learn, and all we have to do is put in the effort.” 

She doesn’t feel the way he does, about books, or learning, or anything, but the incandescence on his face makes her stomach twist. “If only,” she repeats, wistfully. 

Berthold looks over and squeezes her hand gently, and this touches her too. All her life, Victoria has been around important men, children of destiny, and he is the only one who acts as though she matters, if only once in a while. 

So it is not terribly surprising that she leans forward, and that she kisses him. 

* * *

On the other end of the line, after a pause so long she thinks the connection must have gone bad, Dad says: "“Fire alchemy, eh? Do me a favor, Vicky. Keep an eye on him for me.” 

_That's it, then_ , she thinks, no longer sadly, not after all this time. She’s already lost him to his scheming. She always does, in the end. 

* * *

“I have no great love for the military, Warrant Officer,” Berthold tells her frankly, the second time they meet. “I never have, and I never will.” 

With considerable effort, Victoria keeps her face composed. “You’re entirely too kind,” she replies cheerily, “but surely you’ve been known to make exceptions?” 

For effect, she adds her very nicest smile, but it seems that isn’t necessary; the tips of Berthold’s ears are already going red, and he can’t seem to meet her gaze. 

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’ then,” Victoria tells him. 

* * *

She has this friend, named Danny. She meets him on the shooting range during her first week of service as a cadet, and he proposes five minutes into their conversation. 

“Think about it, though,” Danny says, melodramatically clutching her hands. “I like to shoot, you have the best aim I’ve ever seen. Imagine what a child of ours could do! Do it for the next generation, beautiful stranger, if nothing else. Do it for the future of Amestris.” 

Victoria chokes with laughter, tugs her hands away, and tells him to keep trying. He grins back and asks if that’s an invitation. 

She has this friend, named Danny, and three months into his assignment on the front, he's had his fill of blood and snow and nightmares. She simply can't imagine why; it's not as though Victoria's hands curl around a gun reflexively, or as though she watches gaunt-faced men fall in battle around her, always wondering when she'll be next, or as the war bleeds into her dreams. _It gets better with time_ , Dad always told her, but now, heavy-hearted and haunted, Victoria can't imagine how. 

“You can’t be serious,” Victoria says when Danny announces his news over lunch. 

“I’ll be teaching those lazy oafs at Eastern Command how to shoot properly,” Danny says, yet again. “A hard job, but someone has to do it.” 

“But wasting your talents into the boondocks—whoever heard of a shooting instructor from East City making anything of himself?” 

“It’s good work, Victoria,” Danny cuts in, his voice sharp. ”Not everything in life is about charging through the ranks. Someday I hope you’ll realize that.” 

She has the distinct sense that she’s offended him somehow, but she doesn’t know how to apologize for it, and it seems he doesn’t want her to, anyway. She sends him off, dry-eyed, and tries not to think about how she is still her father’s daughter and grudges come all too easily to her. 

It doesn't help. 

She has this friend, named Danny, and she never speaks to him again. For the first time she wonders what the military--what her father--has done to her. 

* * *

Victoria barges into her father’s office. “What is this, Dad?” she bursts out, so angry for a moment she can’t even speak. Instead, she just slaps the orders she’s just received down on his desk. 

“What’s what?” says Dad, and peers down to study the offending paper. “Ah. Good. I was beginning to think Lieutenant Lockheed hadn’t been paying any attention to me at all when I spoke with him.” 

Victoria closes her eyes for a moment, praying for composure. “These orders are sending me north. I was supposed to go to New Optain.” And what a wonderful six months that would been; the other cadets who’d lucked out into that assignment had done desk work for a handful of hours every day before retreating to the bar on base to celebrate their impeding graduation. It would have been a good life in New Optain. She would have been happy there. 

Dad frowns. “And how do you expect to catch the higher-ups' eye, filing paperwork in New Optain?" 

And, Victoria silently finishes for him, when he’s making his case for the Cabinet, it’ll look all the better to point out that he cares so much for the wellbeing of Amestris, he sent his own daughter out onto the battlefield to protect it. To the press he can comment that he cares so much for justice and fair play that he refused to give his daughter the benefits of nepotism. She can’t even begrudge him for it; it’s sound political sense, after all, and he raised her to have a head for it. 

“All right,” she says, only a little sulkily. “It won’t be for long, though, will it?” 

Dad smiles reassuringly, and she’s six years old again, creeping into his study because she’s terrified of a thunderstorm and only safe with him. “Of course not, Vicky. Trust me.” 

* * *

“Dad,” she says as soon as he picks up on the other line. “Dad, I need to talk you now. It’s urgent.” 

“Vicky, I’m busy. Can’t it wait?” 

“No. Dad—I spoke, to Berthold. He won't do it. The State Alchemist program--Dad, he says they'd twist his talent, his work for their own purposes. I tried to tell him about the money, and the status, and the power, and all he told was that he'd rather starve in a gutter than be nothing more than a puppet in someone else's hands.” 

She’s got Dad’s attention at that. “Try harder, then, Victoria. You know what an asset to the nation he’d make someday.” 

Victoria knows that, perfectly well. But Victoria also knows the look on Berthold’s face, the quiet resignation with which he’d studied her face, the terribly gentle way in which he'd asked if she'd only ever meant to bring him into the military as a prize from the start. “I can’t,” she says, and that is that. “I won’t. He's right, Dad.” 

“Victoria Anne Grumman—“ 

She thinks, too, of how, deep down in her bones, she is tired of writing reports and dodging bullets and grenades, and (shamefully) how little she’s liked life in the military from the start. While she’s defying her father, she might as well do a thorough job of it. “I think I’m going to resign. I think I have to resign.” 

There’s a quick, exasperated intake of breath on the other end of the line. “Have you thought for a second,” Dad demands, “about how that would look?” 

In one awful moment, everything becomes clear to her. He hadn’t told her to do what made her happy, or asked why she was feeling this way, or even told her she was being a reckless fool. He simply hadn’t thought about her at all. 

_Nothing more than a puppet in someone's hands,_ she remembers, and feels sick. 

“Is that all you care about?” she asks, praying he says no. 

Dad’s silent for a long moment, and she can’t tell if he’s hurt or just can’t think of a way to hide the truth any longer. “Don’t bother calling again if all you mean to say is this nonsense,” Dad says brusquely, and hangs up. 

She doesn’t. 

* * *

It’s daybreak, and Victoria Hawkeye stands on her porch, baby daughter held close to her. Berthold is still asleep somewhere upstairs in their bedroom; he was up late working on his alchemy, something Victoria is more than used to after ten months of marriage. 

There were rumors about their desperate, impromptu wedding, especially when Riza was born so soon after the wedding, but an unanticipated pregnancy hadn’t prompted her haste: she had signed her wedding certificate just seconds after signing the letter officially resigning her commission. Victoria Grumman needed to disappear after that last terrible argument with her father, and hiding her deep inside Victoria Hawkeye seemed the best way, the only way to manage it. 

She proposed to Berthold, not the other way around. She is still surprised he said yes. 

In her arms, Riza stirs and starts to fuss. Victoria clucks and rocks her again, thinking of nothing in particular. 

A letter arrived, just the other day. In childish script, it read: 

_Dear ~~Warrant Officer Grum~~ ~~Mrs. Hawkeye~~ Ms. Victoria,_

_No matter what my governess Allie tries to tell me, I think you were very brave, and nothing is more important than being brave. Also I think Allie is an idiot, so I ignore everything she says, but especially that you are an ungrateful daughter whose story I should Learn From (Allie wants me to Learn From lots of different things but never tells me what she wants me to learn. This is part of why I think she is an idiot.)_

_I am writing this letter to tell you this, and also that if you or yours are ever in need of any help, all the ~~resor~~ resources of the Armstrong family are at your service. I wanted to thank you, too, for listening to me. No one has ever listened to me before, and when I am a grown-up General, I will not forget that._

_I hope we meet again someday._

_Sincerely,_

_Olivier Mira Armstrong_

It’s altogether the most ostentatious letter she can ever remember receiving, particularly from an eight-year-old. Victoria suppose she can expect nothing less from the little yellow-haired girl who spoke so grandiosely of blasting away Drachmans on that day that seems so long ago. But there’s real sentiment there, too, and that makes her feel guilty for having only listened to little Olivier’s pronouncements with amusement instead of real understanding. She isn’t entirely sure she deserves the girl’s gratitude, and she is sorry for that. 

But that is only one more of many regrets she has from her old life, and Victoria Hawkeye is tired of reflecting on them. 

What’s important now is Riza, tiny Riza with her golden cap of downy hair, dozing in Victoria’s arms. Riza will grow up in a world knowing that she is loved for who she is, not as a means to an end for her parents. Riza will never know despair or loss or masks that people use to hide their true intentions. And most importantly of all, someday, there will be a little yellow-haired girl at a party once again, and that girl will know nothing of the military, will find neither her future nor her dreams in its ranks. 

Victoria will make sure of that.

**Author's Note:**

> Particularly since we learn next to nothing about Mrs. Hawkeye, I feel free to indulge myself in the headcanon that Riza's life would have been very, very different if she'd known her mother.  
> The friend Victoria mentions as transferring to Eastern Command is the instructor who has a blink-and-miss-it appearance in Chapter 25. I liked the idea of his connection to Riza being through her mother rather than through Grumman--who, despite his eccentricity, I have trouble seeing as anything but a fairly ruthless man.


End file.
